Australian politicians – unlike their American counterparts – have largely abandoned the art of stirring speeches. Good rhetoric doesn't equal good policy, but at least it's evidence of imaginative thinking.

“Every day I wake up determined to deliver for the people I have met all across this nation that have been neglected, ignored, and abandoned.”
Mario Anzuoni/ReutersJuly 22, 2016

Now the Conservative Party’s 2014 conference is over, the rhetorical battle lines between David Cameron and Ed Miliband have been drawn more clearly than ever – and the prime minister’s turn in Birmingham…

For some they’re tearful, for others fearful; and for those of us watching they’re sometimes too much to bear. Oscars acceptance speeches offer a microcosmic view into a microcosm: a small world writ large…